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Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Daily Cal: Midweek Notebook: Week 1

Jack Wang

Perhaps one of the biggest changes to this year's Cal football practices - from the players' perspective, at least - has been the shift to early morning practices. Rather than running onto the field in the afternoon or evening, the team has to wake up every day by 6 a.m., and stumble up to Strawberry Canyon at around 6:45 or 7. Having had early wake-up calls all through fall camp, the Bears haven't had too hard of a time adjusting to hiking up the sunrise-backed hills.

"I think for the most part we're doing good," linebacker Mike Mohamed said yesterday. "There's definitely some sleepy eyes in some of the morning meetings. This morning, coach (Kenwick) Thompson, linebackers coach, he cranked up the music right before the meeting just to wake everybody up." The senior standout admits that the team probably doesn't go to sleep as early as they should. Instead of hitting the sack by the ideal 10 p.m., players will more likely stay up past midnight, as many college students would. Coach Jeff Tedford said the change was made in order to give the Bears more time during the day; when everything on the schedule is crammed into the night, the risk of burning out players rises.